Astronaut Kuipers gets a planetoid named after him

After spending nine days in the International Space Station (ISS) in 2004, Dutch astronaut André Kuipers now has a planetoïd named after him by the International Astronomical Union. The small planet revolves around the sun between the planets Mars and Jupiter. It was discovered by a Leiden astronomer couple, the late C.J. van Houten and Ingrid van Houten-Groeneveld on photos that were taken by Dutch astronomer Tom Gehrelsde in the US. The Leiden astronomers had discovered more than 1,000 planetoïds.

(Link: Kennislink)

This entry was posted on Friday, August 3rd, 2007 at 11:07 am and is filed under Dutch first, Science. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Tags: André Kuipers, International Space Station